Shadow Hunters

by Christie Golden

  The little line of refugees had come to a halt. Every one of the dark templar was looking at Kortanul and Adun. Tension was in their bodies and their eyes. The templar guards began to move forward, and Jake sent a thought to halt them.

  “Please move aside, Kortanul,” Adun said gently. “I ask to escort them onto the ship, and to see them safely launched. Nothing more.”

  “You ask too much!” Jake could hardly believe it, but the judicator, a full head shorter and much less powerful than Adun, actually shoved the high templar off the platform. Adun executed a graceful turn as he fell, landing smoothly. An uproar went up from the other Conclave at Kortanul’s actions and their thoughts washed over Jake. Whatever Adun had done, painful and wrong as it was, the Conclave knew he believed it to be right, just as the Conclave believed their decree of banishment to be right. Lost in his outrage, Kortanul had gone too far for even the Conclave.

  “Touch him not!” Raszagal’s youthful broadcast thoughts slammed into Jake. She was stronger than even he had thought, and he had not thought he underestimated her. “He has shown nothing but the best of what we can achieve! He—”

  Kortanul, twisted with zealotry so violent that the rest of the Conclave recoiled from it, whirled on Raszagal. Jake saw the girl stumble and fall to her knees. At the same moment, pain from several of the Conclave washed through him as the more adept dark templar responded. Jake sent the order to fall back and protect Adun and the Conclave. As his templar guards fell back, the Conclave members, now convinced that their own lives as well as the protoss as a race were in danger, began to attack. Jake saw several dark templar fall and he saw the panic begin to spread through them. Their untrained mental powers were no match for the combined might of the Conclave. But they were still a very real danger. If in their defense, one or more lost control again, it would surely create a psionic storm.

  Adun said nothing, merely rushed forward, arms spread out, head thrown back, eyes closed. A radiant blue glow emanated from his wrists, and then moved to encase his entire body. Such Jake had seen before; such, he had even done. But what happened next—

  The glow expanded like smoke, moving forward to encompass the now-panicky line of dark templar who, until the outbreak of violence, had been walking toward the ship. Now they were running full out, and the cloud of blue settled down upon them and embraced them.

  What was he doing? How was he doing it? Jake tentatively inclined his thoughts to Adun’s and was sent reeling backward. Not from an overt attack, but from the very power—and the very unfamiliarity—of what his friend was somehow managing to do.

  Jake sensed the energies that were familiar to him through centuries of focusing his powerful mind. And there was something else, something strange—familiar yet completely alien to him.

  “Both … he’s using both types of energies—the familiar energy of the templar and the … shadow-stuff of the dark templar!”

  “Precisely.”

  “But—if a protoss had already used the dark templar energy—why is it so feared and shunned and—”

  “Watch.”

  Recovering, Jake could only stare at his friend in awe. What was Adun managing to do? What kind of breakthrough in psionic power had he just achieved?

  The dark templar were seemingly as confused as anyone, but they understood protection, and they moved forward into the vessel. When the last ones had nearly made it through—a party of elderly protoss and small children—the curving, graceful doors of the ancient xel’naga vessel began to close.

  Adun stood, back arched, hands up to the sky, eyes now open. He was swathed entirely in the radiant blue cloud, and as Jake watched, Adun’s armor, too, began to glow.

  And his hands … and his face—

  Blue light everywhere, glorious, intense, too much to behold. Jake had to look away but he could not bear to, could only stare in stunned disbelief and wonder as Adun himself glowed like a star in the night sky, bright, magnificently bright; but stars that burned so brightly always—

  “—burn themselves out,” Jake breathed.

  Bright, too bright; Jake squinted, but he saw what happened. Saw, and for the rest of his life wondered at it. Tried to understand it, and failed.

  Adun’s form glowed as brightly, as truly, as a star falling to the ground, transient in its glory, but breathtaking. For a moment, the light came from him, but as Jake watched, it began to consume the executor. Before Jake’s horrified gaze his friend began to disintegrate. And a moment later, he was gone.

  A mental cry of shock and anguish went up among the assembled templar and Conclave. And although Jake did not feel it, he knew that the dark templar were stunned and confused and in pain as well. The blue glow that had taken Adun with it when it departed was gone, and after a few moments, some of the appalled Conclave channeled their grief toward the beings that, Jake realized, they believed had caused his death.

  “Go!” he shouted to the dark templar. “Hurry!”

  They snapped out of their paralysis and the last few ducked quickly through the door before further harm could befall them. The door closed right before the first rush of angry Conclave had made it up the ramp, at once sealing the exiles safely away from the anger of their former brethren and entombing them. Their destiny lay in the hands of the gods now.

  Nothing was left of Adun’s body. Jake reached into the Khala, frantically searching for his old friend, trying to fathom what had happened. For the first time, there was no trace of Adun’s bright and shining spirit in the Khala. He was—gone. Utterly, inexplicably gone, and already the stories were beginning to grow around him, mere moments after his—death? Ascension? What in the world could they even call it?

  Jake bowed his head, even as the ship lifted off, bearing the dark templar away from the only home they had ever had and into the face of the unknown. Taking with them, Jake suspected, the truth and the true greatness of what Adun had done.

  “Adun, my friend … will this world ever see your like again?”

  The grief Jake felt was not entirely that of Vetraas or the long-ago Conclave. Much of it was his own. Adun had not made the choices he had easily or lightly; he had struggled with his conscience and done the best he could to save innocent lives, going against a code of forthrightness in order to attempt to teach others how to integrate into society without compromising their beliefs.

  Jake understood now why Zamara had shown him this. He was limited in his thinking. He’d thought that merely by having the protoss conjure up the storms that had once devastated their world—because every one of them had more experience than the dark templar—all would be well. But bearing witness to Adun’s final act of heroism had put that idea in context. Not only had Adun tried to bring together traditional and dark protoss by teaching the dark protoss how to use their psionic abilities, at the very last, he had understood that both types of power were necessary. Both types of protoss.

  The storms alone weren’t enough.

  There was no time for planning, or first attempts. They would have to succeed the first time or fail spectacularly, both Forged and Those Who Endure, human and protoss and preserver together. The only thing they had going for them right now was the fact that neither Valerian nor Ethan wanted them dead. They would have to defeat Ulrezaj, or at the very least drive him back enough so that everyone could safely escape.

  I cannot guide this. My attention is needed here—I am close to awakening the gate to Shakuras. And your mind—cannot handle another experience with the Khala without my guidance.

  They will have to do it themselves, Jake sent back. They are protoss.

  He sent the thought to the protoss, complete with the memories of Adun and Vetraas. The entire exchange took a heartbeat. He felt their stunned awe, their anger at the deception, but now was not the time to react. Now was the time to do what Adun had done—embrace the two types of protoss psionic powers, the wild and the regimented, the dark and the light.

  The Forged, with the exception of Alzadar, were
still suffering from the dampening effects of the Sundrop. They could not enter the Khala. They could share thoughts, as the dark templar could, but until they had cleansed themselves of the drug they could not share emotions.

  But they had also been changed by the Sundrop. They, like the dark templar had done so long ago, potentially could summon storms of devastating power.

  Those Who Endure would be their guides, their lifelines, their protectors. They could draw strength and calm and support from one another as they linked to the Forged to shield them from the storms once they were created. They could not individually use both types of power, as Adun had, but as a group, as a united species—

  The earth trembled and nearly everyone, zerg and protoss and terran alike, lost their footing. Ulrezaj was nearly upon them and Jake felt wind and electricity stir his hair as the atmospheric effects from Ulrezaj’s outer nimbus reached them. Dark tendrils of shadow began to snake across the ground, and protoss and zerg jumped away to avoid them. Those that did not …

  A little time to prepare, begged both Alzadar and Ladranix, but Jake was implacable.

  “There’s no time!” he screamed, reverting to habit in this moment and shouting the words aloud as well as thinking them. “Start figuring it out now!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  VALERIAN STARED AT THE JUMPY IMAGES THAT were coming in on the view screen. He had patched in feed from six different ships, including the one that carried his ghost. On the screens now was something that looked like—like radiant darkness.

  “What the hell is that?” he demanded of Starke.

  “Sir, I—can’t rightly tell you.” Starke’s voice was shaking and uncertain. “It is extremely psionically powerful, and the energy readings from it are off the scale.”

  Valerian could see that. Spurts of dark energy seemed to erupt from the being like magma, and anything that was in their path—even in their general vicinity—was destroyed. Including one of his ships, he surmised, as one of the screens suddenly went dark.

  “It’s—aaah!”

  In all the time Valerian had known the man, Devon Starke had never raised his voice above a calm, reasoned pitch. To hear him cry out in pain startled the youth. “Devon—what’s happening?”

  “He—it—them—he doesn’t see me as a specific threat, or else I’d be”—a growl of pain—“dead.”

  Valerian watched the swathe of destruction this monstrous thing was causing and did not doubt that statement for a second. “Stay out of its way. You’re too valuable to lose.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “What is it targeting? Is it after Jake?” Valerian stared raptly at the figure, a glorious swirl of death and darkness and destruction. Valerian thought it was a very good thing that his father wasn’t present. Mengsk Senior would probably happily sacrifice Ramsey and the protoss entity inside him in exchange for somehow being able to trap and harness this dark storm of energy. It would make a powerful weapon.

  “Everything, sir. He’s fighting the protoss and the zerg alike. He’s moving directly for the warp gate, though. My guess is that he wants Ramsey, just like the rest of us.”

  That day when he had sat with Jake Ramsey in his study, discussing the temple and toasting the discovery of wonder, Valerian had never anticipated it coming to this—a bitter, bloody fight between three races and a monster on an all-but-dead world. He had not yet developed his father’s callousness when it came to sending men to die, but gave the orders even as he felt a wave of regret.

  He would make it up to Jacob Ramsey. Somehow.

  “See to it that the thing doesn’t get him” was all he told Starke.

  * * *

  “A dark archon!”

  Kerrigan’s voice in Ethan’s mind cracked like a whip. She was surprised, and angry at being surprised, and he quailed slightly at her wrath. “Yet nothing so simple as that, I think. Where did it come from?”

  “I know not, my queen, but we are engaged in battle with it now.”

  “Is it attacking you or the protoss?”

  “It seems to be bearing down upon Ramsey and the gate,” Ethan confessed haltingly. “It seems we all have an interest in the professor.”

  “But there is only one faction that can prevail, and that must be ours. Use our forces fully, my consort. We are fortunate in that it does not matter, nor do we care, how many of our soldiers fall, so long as we obtain our goal. The preserver inside him is valuable beyond measure to me. She must not be allowed to die here.”

  “She shall not,” Ethan vowed. His queen’s consciousness left him, flitting away to other things, other minions, and he sagged slightly.

  She was his world. She had made him, improved him, re-created him to serve and love her, and so he did. Part of him knew that he was not choosing this of his own volition, but he did not care. She was his queen, he adored her, he would die for her, and killing for her was a joyful task.

  * * *

  “Got it!” yelped Rosemary. The look she flashed Jake, obviously intended for both him and Zamara, was filled with triumph and pleasure.

  “I have nearly completed my task as well,” Zamara said. “Once I am finished, we will have six minutes to get everyone through before a self-disabling sequence is employed.”

  “Whoa, wait, we’ve only got six minutes once it’s set?” Jake turned and looked out to where the battle was still taking place. The realization suddenly hit him: There was no way that everyone was going to make it through. Many of his friends would die here.

  Ladranix, of course, read his thoughts. “Four years ago I stood in this very spot, with Raynor, and Fenix, and dozens of my people, who stood to hold back the tide that threatened to wash away everything I loved. We have a saying, Jacob Ramsey: ‘My life for Aiur.’ I thought to give it then, but such was not my fate. I lived to help protect and defend those who could not protect themselves. But today I stand ready to fulfill that destiny, for I believe it to be mine.”

  “Ladranix …” Jake was not in the Khala, not as the protoss were, but he did not have to be for the templar to feel his emotions.

  “I can think of no greater honor than protecting a preserver, or of aiding my people. Truly, I am glad that I did not die that day so that I might stand here at this moment.”

  “I will fight alongside you, as we have before,” said Alzadar. “I will atone for what I have done. What I have unwittingly enabled. The obscenity that marches upon us now was fed in part by my hand. My servitude—my willing, foolish, blind servitude—aided him. I will find redemption when my blood is spilled to stop him. I wish to greet the gods a templar again.”

  “Brother,” said Ladranix, with deep sincerity, “you are already redeemed. But I understand. It will be an honor to die with you.” He extended his hand.

  “My life for Aiur,” said Alzadar.

  “Our lives for Aiur,” replied Ladranix simply.

  With no more words, the two protoss hurried to join the others. Jake looked after them for a long moment, then turned to see Rosemary watching them as well. There was respect, admiration, and a hint of sorrow on her beautiful features.

  Rotten time to fall in love, he thought, then turned his attention to the gathering protoss.

  There was in truth little time. The accidental allies of protoss, zerg, and Dominion were slowing Ulrezaj, but only for the moment. Debris from both Dominion and protoss vessels, crushed or smoking or actively burning, littered the ground, bits and pieces of metal entwined with chunks of flesh from zerg mowed down in numbers almost too vast to comprehend. The remnants of Those Who Endure and the Forged clustered together as far back behind the fighting lines as possible, reaching out toward one another, physically joining hands as they mentally began to link minds.

  Jake didn’t know if it would work. Nor did Zamara, nor Ladranix, nor any of the others who, on his word—his, not even Zamara’s, honestly—were willing to open themselves to the wildness they feared and mistrusted on such a deep level.

  But Jacob, truly�
�there is little else we can do. There are insufficient numbers for disciplined tactics to achieve much more than senseless death. The only hope is the most desperate gambit. Your instincts were sound.

  Could the templar control and direct the storms their Forged brethren were going to summon? Or would the energies spiral out of control, wreaking dreadful havoc upon the very people they were supposed to protect? There was no way of knowing, no way of telling—only the doing of it.

  “Zamara doesn’t need me anymore, so I’m going to the front,” Rosemary said, almost casually, reaching for her rifle and running with a lithe, even gait toward the makeshift bunker walls. Jake watched her go, wanting to call her back, yet knowing that she was too valuable not to utilize. He wished he could do something. It wasn’t his world, but it had become his battle.

  Ulrezaj came on. Implacable and inevitable he was, and Jake despaired to see it. Even if the templar could coordinate in time, how could anything short of a nuclear blast stop this thing? It was huge, and awesomely, devastatingly powerful. Adun had called upon the powers of both Aiur and dark templar to weave a protective shield about those he had sworn to keep safe as they fled into the xel’naga ship. Jake knew a very little bit about the dark templar, but not what had happened to them after that pivotal moment in history. Where had they gone? What had they learned? How had they come to Shakuras? Zamara hadn’t told him that story yet. He was sad to think that he would never live to know it. Never live to know so many stories of these people he had come to respect and love. Never know what it was like to kiss Rosemary Dahl. He—

  It was like a song.

  For a few seconds, he couldn’t fathom what was happening. And then he understood.

  They were doing it.

  Those Who Endure and the Forged were now joining minds, one group grounded in the Khala, which had served them so well when they were in desperate need of order, the other disconnected from that ancient place in the mind and heart, but linked secondarily to it. Dumbly, Jake stood, mouth slightly open, and let it wash over and around and through him. The screams of dying zerg and wild creatures of this world, the boom of exploding vessels, the sound of weapons fire—it all receded before this song of unification. He didn’t hear it with his ears, but he felt it, felt it down to his cells, felt it pulse through him with every contraction of his heart.